Yomawari is back! The cutest horror game around has returned for a third installment and things are just as disturbing as you might expect. For fans of the Yomawari series, you’ll already have an idea of what you’re getting into but for newcomers, expect to be traumatized. Nothing is quite as it seems in this unique horror series from developer and publisher Nippon Ichi Software.
In Yomawari: Lost in the Dark, you play a young girl who has been roughly treated by classmates. Yes, that’s vague, and yes it’s on purpose. Suddenly, you wake up in a strange forest and find you’ve been cursed. To break the curse you’ll have to search your neighborhood, the school, and even an abandoned ship to find all your lost memories. As plots go, Lost in Dark is fairly thin on script but every element is key to understanding what’s going on around you.
This isn’t a hack-and-slash game. Instead, much like previous installments, you slowly explore the dark. Unfortunately, there are a ton of ghosts and monsters in the dark, all based on traditional Japanese folklore and if you can see them, they can likely see you. Get close and they rip you to bloody shreds pretty abruptly. Ew. Fortunately, you have a strong defense mechanism…covering your eyes. Holding the shoulder buttons lets you hide your eyes from the monsters and ghosts and while you can sense them as a sort of heartbeat, they won’t slaughter you unless you get too close. Just step away from the pulsing red lights! Sadly, this won’t always protect you either, so don’t count on the slow creep of hiding your eyes to keep you entirely safe.
In addition to your ability to cover your eyes, you’ve got a flashlight that lets you spot ghosts and monsters, and a few random items you pick up along the way. Naturally, you also get warned about picking things up and how it angers the ghosts, but you’ll have to scavenge to survive. In fact, you’ll even have to scavenge to save. Unless you can make your way back to your bedroom, you’ll have to find shrines to save at. Haven’t got any money? You can’t save. That certainly makes things a bit more challenging, especially in a survival horror game! Pretty soon you end up with plenty of cash of course, but there’s that fear of saving you get from limited saves (typewriter ribbons anyone?) that makes you paranoid. Fortunately, you can use the statues as travel points as well, zipping from area to area and saving you from unnecessarily hiding your eyes and wandering through town again and again.
You can also do the exact thing that most of us would do when encountering a ghost. Run away! There’s a dedicated run button to zip past the specters and monsters before they tear you limb from limb. Sadly, there’s also a stamina bar that drops as you run, eventually slowing you down until you let go and recharge it. One of the more frustrating things about Yomawari: Lost in the Dark is definitely the pacing as your walking speed is incredibly slow. It feels a bit like the original Parasite Eve when they forgot to adjust Aya’s walk after she changed outfits and wasn’t wearing high heels anymore. Slowly padding around town aimlessly can be tedious and running speed feels like the speed the game should be at in the first place unless you’re just here for the spooky atmosphere.
One of the best things about Lost in the Dark is the dichotomy of the graphics and content though. This has been a staple of the Yomawari series from the get-go and it never gets old. The visuals are remarkably cute, trending towards a highly polished almost 16-bit look. However the content itself with murders, animal abuse, and lots of other disturbing content is noticeably at odds with the design elements, leading players to feel safe right up until they’re abruptly and shockingly eviscerated. There’s something about the almost child-like graphics that makes you feel safe when you are absolutely not and the devs over at NIS have managed to turn cute graphics into pure nightmare fuel by juxtaposing the intensity of the series with the disarming nature of the visuals for Lost in the Dark.
There’s one last component of Lost in the Dark we haven’t covered yet and that’s the sound. Lost in the Dark is all about sound providing ambience and setting the mood. Most notably, there is very little music in the game. Wearing headphones is recommended for a more immersive experience because the quiet sounds, echoing footsteps, and strange noises that permeate the game penetrate the brain. It’s legitimately nerve-wracking to walk down abandoned hallways, through creak doors, or down streets covered in sketches only to hear the approaching sound of a phantom train you can’t escape seconds before it obliterates you. The mastery of sound as a vehicle for fear in Lost in the Dark is something we seldom see in games anymore and perhaps the closest parallel is the Silent Hill series where sound plays as much of a key role as the visuals themselves.
If you’re paying attention and collecting memories in the game rather than just wandering around aimlessly, you can make your way through relatively quickly and the entirety of Yomawari: Lost in the Dark becomes a 5-8 hour affair depending on your level of dedication. Each memory you find leads you to a part of the story of what happened to you. Unlocking these larger memories also unlocks new areas in the town, allowing you to explore more fully and advancing the story. The progression of the game is fairly linear and the town is fairly empty aside from the ghosts so you’d think that the plot would carry the day, but with Lost in the Dark, the story really feels trimmed down. A fair portion of the world feels remarkably empty and you just wander around from bit to bit trying to find out what to do next.
The same goes for memories. You would think that finding a new memory would be an automated process but instead you have to go home and view the memory triggered by an item you found, then go back out and search for the area that it unlocks. It’s a slow process that artificially lengthens the game somewhat. Once you do find that area, you’ll have to explore it. Some areas feel almost arcade-like. For example, the rice fields end in a remarkably long survival gauntlet where you’ll have to studiously dodge attacks and memorize patterns to survive, even though there’s no real end boss so to speak. Each area rewards you with more memories and the pieces slowly fall together.
Yomawari: Lost in the Dark isn’t a long game. Instead, it’s a powerful survival horror where you feel continually under-powered and at risk as you wander the darkened ghost-filled streets, halls, and other areas of the game. Death is your constant companion and the stories are as unsettling as a Junji Ito manga, constantly testing the mettle of players as they wander through the main and side storylines. The aesthetic is spectacular, the sound is haunting and minimalist in the best way possible, and the overall experience is disturbing and stressful, exactly what you’d want from a horror game like this one. The fear fades somewhat as you learn the mechanics but the overall weird vibe makes up for the gaps between scares. The plot is a bit weaker than previous entries, but part of that might depend on whether or not players have previous experience with the series. If not, chances are Yomawari: Lost in the Dark will be dark and entertaining for you. If you have played other games in the series, it’s still a great experience but temper your expectations. Either way, it’s still a solid entry into an excellent horror series.
This review is based on a digital copy of Yomawari: Lost in the Dark provided by the publisher. It was played on a Nintendo Switch in both docked and undocked modes and played equally well in both. Yomawari: Lost in the Dark is also available on PS4 and PC on Steam.